I finally had a chance to play around with the new Sony NW-HD5, another so-called “iPod Killer.” The verdict? When you hold it up and touch the casing, it feels a bit flimsy, almost like you’re holding some cheap Chinese knockoff—this is not sleek PSP territory. But yes, it weighs next to nothing, which is quite a feat for a 20GB HD player. But to get it so light it becomes obvious that they’ve cut corners with the screen—low resolution, it looks more like the type of interface that you get on an electronic dictionary than what we’re used to seeing with the iPod. The menus are iPod-like, and one improvement is that when you go to the song listing, you are first shown an alphabet listing, to then jump quickly to tracks starting with a certain letter. All-in-all, it just doesn’t look and feel as stylish as the pictures make it out to be, but the smaller size and lightness (iPod shuffle territory) will probably be a selling-point to some.
I was more into the NW-E405 (512MB), NW-E407 (1GB), and NW-507 (1GB + FM tuner) flash players. Tiny and light, they look great, especially the display that blends with the casing.
If you just can’t wait for the eventual US release (still unannounced), UK importer AV-LAND carries them all.
NW-HD5 Catalog Page [AVLand.co.uk]
